Now Annie had never had to suffer hunger, and the idea that her
companion from childhood should be exposed to such a fate was what she
could not bear. Yet, for any way out of it she could see, it would have
to be borne. She might possibly, by herself going without, have given
her a good piece of bread; but then she would certainly share it with
her foolish husband, and there would be little satisfaction in that!
They had already arrived at a stage in their downward progress when not
gold, or even silver, but bare copper, was lacking as the equivalent for
the bread that could but keep them alive until the next rousing of the
hunger that even now lay across their threshold. And how could she, in
her all but absolute poverty, do anything? Her mother was but one pace
or so from the same goal, and would, as a mother must, interfere to
prevent her useless postponement of the inevitable. It was clear she
could do nothing--and yet she could ill consent that it should be so.
When her father almost suddenly left them alone, Annie was already
acting as assistant in the Girls' High School--but, alas! without any
recognition of her services by even a promise of coming payment. She
lived only in the hope of a small salary, dependent on her definite
appointment to the office. To attempt to draw upon this hope would be to
imperil the appointment itself. She could not, even for her friend, risk
her mother's prospects, already poor enough; and she could not help
perceiving the hopelessness of her friend's case, because of the utter
characterlessness of the husband to whom she was enslaved.
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